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Authors: Alane Ferguson

BOOK: The Dying Breath
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“Wait, Justin, if this is about Leather Ed, I’m not allowed to work the case.”
“It’s not Leather Ed. This is . . . something else.”
Lyric leaned close, the fabric of her peasant shirt drooping like orange wings. “I told you I felt his vibe,” she whispered into Cameryn’s free ear. “Who’s got the power?”
Shaking her head, Cameryn frowned and held up her index finger. “So who died?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. All I can tell you is that this whole thing is freakin’ weird. Dr. Moore says the inside of the first body is not like anything he’s ever seen before. He wants to wait to begin the second autopsy until you’re there.”
Cameryn blinked. “Excuse me—did you say
second
autopsy?”
Students shuffled past, their feet digging forward as they chewed on the last of their lunches, hurrying toward the exit. Cameryn’s whole mind focused on the word
second
.
Two
deaths. Two bodies, prepped to be dissected and reassembled like pieces of a puzzle.
Justin paused and added, “This is the first time I’ve heard Moore ask for help.”
That fact alone seemed impossible. Dr. Moore, the curmudgeon pathologist from Durango, stomped through his autopsy suite like an aging bull, barking orders at everyone within earshot. And yet he wanted Cameryn’s presence. She could feel her internal gears shifting as she flipped into her scientific mode. “Do you know the manner of death?”
“No idea. These guys keeled over and dropped dead in some restaurant. Boom—they were gone. Moore told me to tell you that this case is ‘sensitive.’ That translates to: keep it under the radar for now.”
Lyric pulled at the edge of Cameryn’s sleeve. “Cammie, what’s going on?” she asked, at the same time as Justin fired his next question.
“So, are you in?”
“Of course I’m in.” Then, to Lyric, she whispered, “It’s forensic stuff. I’ve got to go.”
“I’m sorry, Cammie,” Justin apologized. “I was hoping to keep you away from the stressful stuff and this is definitely not what I had in mind.”
“No worries.” She tried to ignore the way her stomach wobbled when she thought about spending time alone with Justin. It was better this way, having a focus. It made her less nervous.
The last of the departing students whirled past like confetti, blurring in the edge of her periphery. “I’ll go to the front office and check myself out. Where are you now?” Cameryn asked. She slid out of her chair and onto her feet, stacking her tray neatly on top of Lyric’s.
“I’m out in front. Hurry, Cameryn. I’m already waiting.”
Chapter Four
“YOU READY FOR
this?” Justin asked.
“Yeah. Are you?” Cameryn replied. The two of them climbed the cement steps of the Durango Medical Examiner’s Building. She’d never entered by the front before. Instead she and her father, in their station wagon hearse, had always arrived via the garage. Now as she and Justin stood side by side she studied their reflection shimmering in the glass door. With a start she realized how much he towered over her—a good eleven inches separated the top of her head from his.
I look so young,
she thought. Her dark hair, which hung past her mid back, made her look every bit the teenager she was. The blue Land’s End parka and faded jeans didn’t help. Instinctively she rocked slightly onto her toes, adding a modicum of height, which made her feel better somehow.
“Just how short are you, anyway?”
He must have seen her stretching. “Tall enough to cut up a body,” she replied.
“Point taken.” Smiling, he pushed open the door and ushered her inside. That was how it had been the entire drive down—they’d kept it light, talking about the case and the urgency of Dr. Moore’s call. They both knew they had sailed into new waters, and yet Justin, thankfully, was giving her space
.
Still, there was an unspoken tide moving just beneath the surface. She could feel it in the way his gaze lingered on hers a beat longer than before, the way he let his hand graze against hers, his fingers light against her skin. He was holding back, waiting, watching for her “yes.”
“You know, no matter how hard they scrub it, this place still reeks of death,” Justin whispered into the top of her head. “I’d rather smell your hair.”
“You mean my dandruff shampoo.”
“Ah, is that what it is?” He took in a deep whiff. “Nice.”
“You like the smell of salicylic acid and selenium sulfide?”
“You’re showing off, Cammie.”
“Well, you
did
call me short.”
“A mistake I will never make again,” he said. “You know too many big words.”
“Right. Okay, Justin, you need to be serious. Two people are dead and we’re on duty. Focus.”
“You want me to be serious?” Thrusting out his chin, he said, “I wish it was Kyle on that autopsy table. He’s the one who should be dead. But the universe isn’t always fair, is it?”
“You worry too much about me,” she answered. Without thinking she laced her fingers through his, and she noticed the corner of his mouth bend up as he squeezed her hand, then released it. Without a word they walked on.
The foyer had a ficus tree propped in a corner; the tips of its branches brushed her as she walked past. Justin was right—there was a smell, a faint sickly sweet odor masked by disinfectant. Noisome traces of the dead. If she believed what Lyric told her, the human cells floating through the building were already being pulled into the soil to be reborn through the leaves in an endless cycle of rebirth in an endless succession.
Cameryn, though, had been raised on the certainty of science intertwined with the mystery of her Catholic faith. It was through these diverse filters that she attempted to explain the uncertainty of justice. How was it that two people had died while Kyle roamed free? She had to believe Kyle would be caught because of forensics, and if science didn’t nail him she’d settle for the hand of God, Old Testament style.
After making their way down the hallway they stopped at a desk made of blond wood. A woman Cameryn vaguely recognized looked up.
“Hey, Justin. Who’s your little friend?” She eyed Cameryn’s pink Swatch watch and her chewed fingernails. Cameryn quickly shoved her hands in her coat pockets.
“This is Cameryn Mahoney,” he answered. “Patrick Mahoney’s daughter. She’s assistant to the coroner. Dr. Moore asked her to come.”
“Oh, right.” There was the barest of nods. “I remember now. The child prodigy.” The woman wore a name tag that read
Amber Murphy
. She was about twenty-five, with short red hair and a heart-shaped face. Her eyes slid back to Justin and she gave him a bright smile. Cameryn noticed Amber had dimples.
“So, Justin, where have you been hiding?” Amber asked. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been on duty, protecting the good people of Silverton.”
“We could use a little of that down here in Durango, cowboy. There’s a lot of wild things going on in our big city.”
“Did you just call Durango a big city?” Justin asked, laughing. “Remember, I moved here from New York—”
“Excuse me, can we go back now?” Cameryn interrupted. “Dr. Moore made it sound like the case is time sensitive.”
Amber blinked, as though she had already forgotten Cameryn was there. Clearing her throat, she said, “Of course. But I’m supposed to ask you a question. Dr. Moore’s having a holy fit about security, so . . . did anyone approach you about the decedents at any time before you got here?”
Justin said, “No,” while Cameryn shook her head.
“Good. I feel stupid asking, like I’m one of those security people at the airport. I mean, who doesn’t know by now
not
to take packages from a stranger, and who’d be dumb enough to say yes if they actually did? But Moore told me to grill everyone, so that’s what I’m doing.” She leaned forward, and Cameryn noticed that Amber lined her mouth outside the edges. A glossy lipstick glittered on lips painted the color of maple sugar. “Do you even
know
who we got back there?” Amber gave Justin a cloying look. She was talking to him directly while simultaneously erasing Cameryn.
“Not a clue,” Justin replied.
But Amber was all smiles. “You’ll see.” Another knowing look, this time accompanied by a wink as she waved them toward the swinging doors. “One thing’s for sure, when this gets out, the paparazzi are gonna go wild,” she called after them.
The last words cut in and out as the door swung behind them and Cameryn stopped just beyond their reach. Crossing her arms, she stared up at Justin and hissed,
“Little friend?”
Justin gave a wicked, faunlike grin, his eyebrows arching into his too-long hair. “Amber’s all right.”
“I’m sure
you
think so,
cowboy
.”
He cocked his head and she felt her heart kick sideways.
Get a grip,
she told herself. She was about to do an autopsy and she had no business musing over the color of Justin’s irises, water mixed with sky.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No! It’s just that Amber mentioned the word
paparazzi
. Cases that have a lot of media attention are always harder,” she lied, aware of how much she disliked Amber and her glossy lips. “Plus, I don’t know of any celebrities who live in Durango.”
“There’s some festival going on in Telluride—I think it’s the TelluVision Showcase, or something like that. Telluride’s only a couple of hours away. But . . . aren’t you the one who said the case was time sensitive?”
“What?”
“You’re loitering.” He grinned at her in a way that made heat creep up her face. “You chewed out poor Amber and now you’re the one standing in the hallway. I could write you up for that.”
“You are
such
a punk.” Walking quickly, she charged ahead of him to the autopsy room, but before she could push through he grabbed her hand.
“I could let you off for good behavior,” he teased. “All you have to do is—”
But whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a low rumble coming from inside the autopsy suite. “Miss Mahoney, Deputy Crowley—enough with the happy chatter. Get in here.
Now
!” The voice belonged to Dr. Moore. His tone was even more cantankerous than usual.
“I’ll review your case later,” Justin whispered as he thrust open the door.
The room was large, as big as five of her classrooms, with gleaming chrome and lights that droned like insects in a swamp. The floor, laid with green and white tile, had been scrubbed so often the shine had dulled. Cameryn knew that at times bodies leaked fluid through their body bags to leave trails across the floor. As always the odor was stronger in here, the last traces of life still discernible beneath the fumes of bleach. Huddled around an autopsy table were Dr. Moore; his assistant, Ben; Sheriff Jacobs; and Cameryn’s father, Patrick. They all turned to stare as Cameryn and Justin entered the room.
“Well, I’m glad you two finally made it,” her father said. Patrick’s eyes seemed to linger on Justin a brief moment before flicking away. It was hard to discern what he was thinking because the mask made his expression inscrutable.
“This case will require your full concentration,” said Dr. Moore. The doctor, still bent over the body, wore thick gloves and a heavy plastic apron over pale scrubs. His morgue shoes, a pair of black high-tops with Velcro instead of laces, were shiny with blood. Half-moon reading glasses perched on the bridge of his paper mask, magnifying his eyes so that they seemed owl-like; a ring of white hair haloed his balding head. Lately, Cameryn had seen a difference in him. His bullfrog neck had thinned, while his round, apple-shaped torso had diminished so that it resembled a deflated ball. But the voice sounded as petulant as ever.
“Grab the clipboard next to the histology samples, Deputy. I’m going to need everyone on this.”
“Yes, sir,” Justin said as he quickly moved toward a set of cupboards located by the walk-in refrigerator.
“And now for you.” Dr. Moore lasered in on Cameryn. “The sheriff has brought me up to speed concerning your shenanigans at Leather Ed’s. I’m surprised. I pegged you as an intelligent girl.”
“Woman,” she corrected automatically under her breath. She flushed when she realized the doctor had heard her.
Moore bit off each word. “Not. Yet.”
She felt the full heat of the doctor’s gaze, and as much as she wanted to cringe away, she knew she could not. Although she had learned to like Dr. Moore she also understood he would steamroll over anyone who let him. Carefully arranging her face so that it conveyed strength, rather than the panic she was actually feeling, she said, “I already told the sheriff I was sorry.”
“Water under the bridge,” Jacobs answered, clearing his throat. He shifted uncomfortably. “Let’s move on. We got other fish to fry.”
“Yeah, give Cammie a break,” Ben jumped in. A diener, Ben assisted Dr. Moore in the most difficult aspects of the forensic job. Every corpse was gently washed by Ben, its skin stitched with sutures so wide they looked like the teeth of a zipper. Organs were dipped in water before dissection, the contents of bowels washed clean, and yet, somehow immune to death’s gruesomeness, Ben kept his jovial warmth. “We can’t gang up on her, Dr. Moore,” he said, shooting her a grin. “Not when we’re askin’ for her help.”

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